South Korea to pay $550 mln for Iran oil under nuclear deal

South Korea will make a first payment of $550 million to Iran for imports of crude oil under an interim nuclear deal that has provided limited relief from sanctions, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on March 5, Reuters reported.

The payment on Friday will come after Japan made the first and second oil payment to Iran in February and earlier this week.

Under a Nov. 24 pact with six major powers, Iran won access to $4.2 billion of its oil revenues frozen abroad by eight money-transfer schedules through July if it carried out its part of the deal to curb its nuclear programme.

According to the agreement, the second and third payment schedules were due March 1 for $450 million and March 7 for $550 million.